£99 PlayStation 3 model has no hard drive?

The latest rumours suggest that Sony will no longer be announcing the new ‘super slim’ model of the PlayStation 3 at Gamescom next month, despite new details of the console emerging.

These images are from Brazilian website Tecnoblog

New doubts have arisen as to whether Sony intends to reveal the new CECH-4001x line of PlayStation 3 consoles, already dubbed the ‘super slim’.Images and technical details of a new smaller version of the PlayStation 3 console first emerged a few weeks ago, with Sony thought to be about to officially announce it at the Gamescom event in Germany next month (billed as Europe’s answer to E3).

According to sources speaking to website VG247 though this is no longer the case, the reason being that Sony has too much stock of the current model – which they’re afraid they’ll no longer be able to sell as easily if they announce a new model.

The super slim isn’t expected to have any new functionality over the existing model, but the current rumour is that there will in fact be three separate models: one with a 250GB hard drive and one with a 500GB hard drive.The cheapest model though apparently has just 16GB of internal flash memory instead of a hard drive, which would be a first for any PlayStation 3 console. Some sources suggest that this model could be priced as low as £99, while others dispute that it would be quite that cheap.The only way to know for sure is for Sony to make an official announcement, but if that doesn’t take place at Gamescom it’s not clear when they might say something.They do certainly have a media briefing planned for the event – because they just invited us to one on Tuesday, August 14 – but apart from new looks at their upcoming games they’re not saying exactly what it’s for.